They had some themes on which they never ceased to descant. One of these was Paul Jones’s piratical visit to the Firth of Forth, which was looked upon as a very formidable event by the small towns on the coast of Fife, but which happily turned out a scare. My grandmother saw the big ship of the pirate from near the hamlet of Glassmount, about two miles from Kinghorn. And there is good news for strangers who may come now-a-days to the old place for summer quarters. They need not be afraid for another Paul Jones coming to alarm them, as there is now a strong fortress on the Pettycur road, under the shadow of whose wings they may rest in perfect safety. But there was another matter quite as engrossing, and that was the injury which steam-boats had done or would do to the town. Before these began to ply there were big, ordinary boats which carried passengers; and as these boats started only at particular times of the tide, passengers had generally to stay some time in the town: more to the delight of the innkeepers and others, we should imagine, than to that of the strangers thus detained, in order to have the opportunity of leaving a little of their money behind them. We know better now; and I am sure that the inhabitants of Kinghorn would not be inclined to go back, on any terms whatever, to those good old ways, so easy in all that belonged to them. Such retrospects, while both interesting and instructive, are not without an infusion of sadness. In my case, early companions in and about Kinghorn have all disappeared but two: namely, Henry Darney, a worthy citizen of the town, and Major Greig, now of Toronto, Canada. It is a touching thought, and brings to my remembrance the tender and beautiful verses of Delta, with which I conclude:-- ‘Where are the playmates of those years? Hills arise and oceans roll between. We call, but scarcely one appears; No more shall be what once has been. ‘Yet, gazing o’er the bleak green sea, O’er snow-capped cliffs and desert plain, Mirrored in thought methinks to me The spectral past returns again. ‘Once more to retrospection’s eyes, As ’twere to present life restored, The perished and the past arise, The early lost and long deplored.’”